Deciphering Dessert Labels

August 12, 1993|By Nancy Millman.

If it's non-fat, can it still be ice cream? Not really. And if it has no fat, how can it still taste so good? Thank modern technology.

Ice cream companies must conform to federal standards in the production of their products. And though current labeling regulations don't require that these standards be spelled out for consumers, here's what these terms mean to the people in the dairies:

"If your product is outside those standards, you just call it a frozen dessert," said Ron Rahorn, a dairy and food technologist for Dean Foods in Rockford.

Companies such as Dean and Dryer's/Edy's Grand, which market low-fat and non-fat dairy desserts, have been able to develop good-tasting products thanks to a 7-year-old technology that allows them to "dissect milk and separate it into components," said John Harrison, manager of flavor development for Dryer's/Edy's Grand in Oakland, Calif.

So instead of "having to go to left field to get a binder" to substitute for good old-fashioned fat, Harrison said, "we now have milk proteins, a non-foreign flavor ingredient, to go along with egg whites" in low-fat and non-fat "ice creams."